“Within three days,” I agreed.
Gerald nodded at Everson and led the way out the door.
“Rochester,” Everson asked me when they had left, “are you really satisfied? Have you no quibbles at all with this?”
“I have not. It seems clear to me; there was a marriage. There is no point in dragging this out.”
“But you will lose everything—Thornfield-Hall, your other properties, your income, everything.”
“I will lose them indeed.”But I will keep Jane.“How long will it take to receive an annulment?”
He sighed. “Four weeks, I would assume.”
“Four weeks,” I repeated.
Chapter 19
Gerald came to see Bertha two days later. I had ensured Jane’s absence from Thornfield by suggesting she take Adèle on a trip for the day in the pony cart. It was a mistake on my part, in retrospect, to let him come, but at the time I was trying to do the right thing. I reminded myself that it was not Gerald who was to blame for what my father and brother had done to me, and I warned him again of her condition, but he seemed incapable of understanding.
He left his mount in the stable yard and followed me through the side entrance door and all the way up to the curtained door to Bertha’s chambers. “She’s like to be sleeping,” I warned him. “She is more somnolent in the daytime, more violent and unpredictable at night. She will not know who you are, even if you tell her, but she dislikes strangers. Take care, she may, even in daytime, try to attack you.”
He nodded carelessly, as if to sayhewas no stranger. I imagine he thought he could beguile Bertha into recognizing him.
I unlocked the door and led him into the outer chamber. Grace Poole was startled, for I rarely came at this time of day, and she made a quick move to hide the mug at her side. “Grace”—I nodded to her—“my companion has come to visit Bertha.”
At the door to the inner chamber I stood for a moment on the threshold, Gerald looking over my shoulder. Bertha lay asleep, her hair matted and awry, but her face as calm as it ever was. I could still see how I had once thought her beautiful.
I stepped to the edge of the bed, but Gerald immediately knelt at the bedside and put a hand on her arm. I marveled at his lack of hesitation; it occurred to me he might be playing out a scene he had imagined countless times in his head over the years. At his touch, Bertha stirred, then fell back into sleep. “Mother,” Gerald said softly.
Her eyelids fluttered. “Mother, I’m your son,” Gerald said, trying to coax her awake.
“’Ware,” Grace warned, her voice swelling from the doorway behind us.
Suddenly Bertha opened her eyes, seeing me first, frowning as if unable to decide if she knew me. Then her eyes swept to Gerald, and she flinched sharply at the unfamiliar face, batting his hand away from her arm.
“Mother, it’s me,” he said more forcefully.
“Took my baby, where’s my baby, where’s my baby, where’s my baby,” she muttered almost incoherently. Should I have warned him that she would not understand? Yes, undoubtedly. But I did not. I was curious as to how this would play out.
“I am he,” Gerald insisted, his eyes searching his mother’s face, which was growing more feral by the minute. “I am your son and I have—”
His words were swallowed by her scream. Again he persisted, his voice rising to match hers, as if her understanding were only a matter of hearing him. “I am here, Mother. I have finally found you!”
“Gaaaa, gaaaa!” She let out a wail that could be heard throughout the house, and she clawed at him as he stood, frozen in horror. It was only Grace’s quick reflexes that saved him. She leaped across the room and pulled a snarling and growling Bertha away.
“Gerald,” I said, “come.”
“No,” he said. He now stood halfway across the room, unwilling to approach his mother but unwilling, too, to leave her. But her cries were growing louder now, and I knew Grace would not be able to contain her forever. I took him by the shoulders and pushed him from the room and down the stairs, slamming the door behind me.
By the time we reached the gallery, he was furious and in tears. “What have you done to her?” he demanded.
“I told you. She is mad, and she cannot be cured. Her own mother was the same.”
But he would hear none of it. “You have done this to her! She was the most beautiful girl in Jamaica…” His eyes blazed dark fury, and he swung at me, his fist barely missing my jaw and landing on my shoulder instead.
I tried to guide him toward the stairs, but he swung again and this time hit his mark, and then came another blow, and by the third I was swinging back, and we tumbled to the floor, two grown men fighting and tussling like common ruffians.
I was less skilled, perhaps, but stronger, and I rose from him, straightening my clothes, but he stayed at my feet, staring furiously at me. “What have youdone to her?” he demanded again, his voice steely.
